Women, Law, and Social Control Book

A good informative read, especially if you are a word-nerd or a law student.
If you enjoy the nitty gritty of language construction, this is for you. If not, this could be quite heavy going. This book is teaming with linguistic jargon and technical procedures. However it is well written with a personal tone that keeps it from being too dry.
Each chapter describes a different criminal case where the author was called upon to use forensic linguistic skills to analyse written or vocal evidence. The cases are fascinating: poison pen letters & emails, witness statements, voice identification, suicide notes, text messaging and copyright infringement.
I found Chapter 4 "Is the Da Vinci Code Plagiarism?" interesting as it makes clear plagiarism: as an academic offense versus copy right infringement: a civil offense, legally protected by payment of damages.
The author was engaged by the novelist Lew Perdue to look at the evidence to see if Dan Brown had infringed his copyright. Perdue wrote a series of books on the subject of the catholic church under threat by some secret documents pertaining to the "lost feminine". In particular "Daughter of God" (2000) had very similar themes and plot to "The Da Vinci Code". Olsson found convincing forensic evidence to support Perdue's infringement of copyright claim, (the most convincing being the repetition of research mistakes) but he holds back from asserting outright plagiarism. Perhaps because the district judge ruled that the claim was wrong and the Supreme Court backed his decision.
On the whole this is good read, a bit hard going at times but easy to dip in and out of.